Jugaad Inc. !!

Hai kya koi Jugaad ?

Arrey yaar tum to bade jugaadu nikaley !

Are daro mat, mere pass bahut jugaad hai !!

Jugaad is everywhere, on Wikis, Harvard Business, Wall Street Journals and ofcourse in the hearts and souls of every Indian. What exactly is Jugaad - a solution to overcome a problem, somehow, anyhow, in the fastest possible manner, by spending least amount of time and energy ! Sounds some heavenly insane stuff, isn't it !

Is Jugaad our biggest asset or the liability ? Have we reached so far because of jugaad or we havent reached where could have because of jugaad. Is jugaad a solution or a full blown problem in itself...

The Birth of Jugaad -due to lack of time or resources or both or due to lack of understanding of the situation at hand, sometimes due to simple arrogance and sometimes out of innocence We the Indians have developed the concept of Jugad (ad-hoc arrangement). We dont want to face the problems today or at least now or we don't want to think about the solution because it might be too expensive today or we might have to work bit hard to resolve the real issue, so in order to save time, money, energy, resources 'today' we think of Jugaad.

The Jugaad usually delivers immediate results, makes the person who carried out the Jugaad a real cool dood in front of his rest of the fellow men, everybody appreciates him/her for presence of mind and for solving the problem instantly without much kharcha (expenditure)  and sardard (headache i.e. hardwork). Slowly the Jugaadu ( the ad-hoc problem solver) becomes the talk of the town and every kid in the town, wants to be like him.

Over a period of time, several centers of Jugaad crops up in every town. Sadhu-baba (holy man) becomes the main Jugaad (back door entry in this case) to the highest court of law. A seemingly innocent Panwala, Chaiwala, popular Bhaiya ji, a not so popular defeated politician, bus-conductor a TC/TT in the great Indian train becomes synonymous to Jugaad. From your first to last ritual the Pandits will recommend some jugaad for everything depending on your convenience and budget. Likewise from getting a birth certificate to import machinery without paying duties, the Babus are well verse of the jugaad to get things done. Looking at the current heads (2 Ps) of our democratically elected government, one can realize how high one can reach with Jugaad and bit of luck, even sky is within reach !

Foreign media, several renown business journals etc have openly endorsed the great India Jugaad. No matter what the government in the center wants us to believe, but the facts are we are world's largest democracy but we are not most successful one, we may become top 3 economy by 2025, but I dont think even by 2100 (yes, you read is correctly, 88 years from hence) we will be in top 30 nations in the world on the basis of Per capita GDP. We tend to believe that we are super kool in mathematics, accounting and economics but our koolness is mostly confined to calculating aXb or tallying the accounts the fastest, unfortunately not much beyond that. We are no doubt one of the most hardworking people in the world, but certainly not the most creative of the lot. We are great at cooking the books of a company to raise money form the market but we are yet to create companies which can change the rules of the market. 

Lets talk about world's most innovative companies, most rapidly growing companies, most respected universities in the field of arts, science, technology or business and we are almost sure of not finding any Indian entity. The reason is simple, we are still searching for the appropriate Jugaaad to make it and to break it into the league :) !

If not for the business Jugaad of Outsourcing, how else could American and European corporations would have made so much more money despite recession ! The value proposition in this Outsourcing jugaad is so much that it managed to survive 2 decades, thankfully.

I tend to believe that God has not created this Earth and its all some great cosmological accident, a.k.a the Big Bang after which it all began. But then I wonder if not for God, how else this massive, beautiful country of ours has survived all these years. Now that's what I call the ultimate Jugaad, Bhagwaan Bharose !!

Bhaktjan - Hey Prabhu is baar kuch jugaad lagwa de, agli baar se dhyaan rakhoonga !

Bhagwan - Oh no, Not Again !!

No Bollywood for Middle Aged Women !

There's an old saying - art is reflection of the society! 99% of Bollywood movies are certainly an exception. Interestingly the India film industry aka Bollywood has two clearly defined categories - Stars and Actors ! Stars are evergreen, media friendly, people savy stalwarts, usually adept in marketing and PR activities.  Ironically very few women have been able to achieve stardom in past 100 odd years of India cinema. 

Until late 1970s, heroines, as we usually prefer calling them, had a well defined role, character and attributes. In addition, mothers and sometimes sisters too were important part of the Bollywood stories those days! The divas of 50s, 60s and 70s gracefully retired as they hit mid 30s, though most of them were married in the same fraternity,i.e. no dearth of opportunity.  Why only the women/ the heroines take a sabbatical to raise their kids and then they slowly move into obscurity forever? Why women from these wealthy and seemingly liberal entertainment industry powerhouses only become the scapegoats of the double standards? Some might say that the choice was theirs, but how free, how unbiased that decision was !

Those days going to a theater was not considered a good manner, so women rarely went to theaters. According to my guesstimate more then 90% of the Directors, Producers, writers and the technical staff was and is male. So there were genuine reasons for not casting middle aged women those days, i.e. no market for women oriented movies, very few women representatives to hoist the flag !

Cut to 2012 and the situation is still the same. Unfortunately not even young, educated, outward thinking, highly smart, international competition winner and even talented heroines are not able to demand, command good script, well written characters except those of confused love birds. The superstar actresses of 90s and early 00's are already forgotten. The mothers and sisters are no longer relevant in the mindless movies made for weekend multiplex audiences. What a wastage of talent ! 

I think the reason for current state of affairs lies in a box, infact two boxes. The one box is what you are currently using. A significant % Women in 40s and 50s in India currently are not yet Online. So they are not able to voice their opinion, voice their demands unlike their teen kids. This box has done one more thing. Because the teens and the young kids are constantly in touch with their friends and the rest of the world, so they dont miss the middle aged women anymore in personal and virtual lives and even movies. 

The other black box, is our good old, earlier known as Idiot Box. The Indian Television Industry has been filling this vacuum for past 15 years. It has preserved and reserved the Prime Time for Indian women and served them quiet adeptly. Infact the Television has provided good opportunity to showcase talent to several middle aged hero and heroines who were good actors but couldn't achieve stardom in Bollywood.

However I am slightly perplexed here. What happened on the Television screen was the cause or the effect of what happened on the Silver Screen ! Perhaps the reason lies in our expectations. We the viewers always expected our heroines to be beautiful, young, elegant and sexy. We are/were not interested in their acting and so couldn't accept their growing wrinkled face or disproportionate vital statistics ! 

Let me know what you think...

Adrenalin, Cheer Girls, IPL and All that is Not Cricket..

As we knew it !

Cricket was designed as a game to engage and entertain the families of the elite bureaucrats of the former British Empire. It survived Two World Wars (so what ?) and flourished in some of the former English colonies. Despite having a 200 years of legacy, decent money and glamour (till 2008) and yet only handful of countries decided to take it seriously. Going by shear numbers its safe to assume that almost 20% of the world population simply loves this game, and its considered not second to religion. But to put the numbers in perspective only 8 teams (countries) have been playing it consistently, seriously for more then 20 years now.

And then 2008 happened ! Yes, it survived the two world wars but not the year 2008.

Kim Raikkonen tops the charts of all time highest paid sportsperson per game ($2.94M/ game), whereas Alex Rodriguez tops the list for signing the world's largest sports contract ($275M contract for a period of 10 years) to date.

The most respected, successful of the football, baseball, basketball players play for around 30-60 minutes in a game, few games in a season and make millions. But, and this one will be a big but, mind you, what if they are asked to play the full game and all the games and all the series and tournaments possible in a year?

Remember the age old adage, Goose that Lays the Golden Egg ! So lets kill that goose and take out all the eggs at a time. Perhaps a 8 years old will tell us that the Goose the will die, but we grown ups have grown past the wisdom of age old adage, especially the ones sitting in cricketing councils, the die-hard fans and the business savvy czars and tycoons !

Usain Bolt can do a 100 in 9.58 (10.43841/sec) seconds but Patrick Makau could do a 42195 in 7418 seconds (5.688191/sec), so does that mean Bolt can run a marathon in half the time of current world record, if he wants to ? All the forms of sports have understood that its one thing to cross English channel and its totally different to swim a 50 mtr breast stroke. I hope as the cricket spreads it reach to more continents, as more and more league culture develop sponsors and board members will focus on nurturing and appointing three sets of specialists for the three prevalent forms of the game.

Cricket is a gentlemen's game, so lets not reduce it to a tug of war between the three formats !

No denying the obvious that IPL has added several new dimensions, adrenalin, cheer girls, 10x more money for 10x more players, benefiting the game in general, certainly a good beginning in a right direction.

So lets not kill the goose. We should not expect a cricketer to run a marathon in the fastest possible time and should not procrastinate a marathon runner for not being able to run a mile the fastest. Instead of putting all the monies in the factory which produces cricketers only on the fertile soil of Indian sub-continent, lets try to develop at least 29 good international cricket playing teams, so that I can no longer use my fingers.

Lets raise the ceiling because, there certainly is enough room to generate 10x more money then currently under consideration. IPL has certainly added cheer girls and several powerful aspects to the game, but both the crickets and those powerful people are trying to kill the goose, so as to make all the hay while the sun shines.

Dear Sponsors, Crickets boards, Trust me there will be a tomorrow and the Sun will shine all over again !!

Why Women Liberation Can Take Off Only in India !

The instance of misbehavior, heinous crimes against women in India are among the highest in the world, yet there are few things which makes me feel positive.

A lot of confusion is spread on the web and in the minds of educated Indian men and women about the orthodox, way of life which I hope will clear out slowly. Majority of confusions are about Traditions and Religion. Driven by consumerism and desire to make quick buck, gain quick fame or pleasures local traditional or global festivals are getting reduced to occasional superficial lip-service, pompous celebrations. 

While a lot of traditions are good, many are bad, illogical and with passage of time such traditions have bee dying natural death. Traditions are usually regional phenomena which evolved either in response to an external situation such as geography or climate or out of one odd instances. Parda Pratha for example started in northern parts of India to safeguard the women from the eyes of soldiers and fighters from Central Asia who frequently invaded India for over 1000 years. Parda Pratha is not part of any religion of India origin. Similarly traditions such as Sati though abolished and extinct now developed due to one odd incidence. Modern educated Indian women might find traditions of Karva Chauth or Rakhi as discriminating or demeaning but once again these are not propagated by any Religion. In-fact if some time and efforts are made to learn the stories and anecdotes behind each of these rituals everybody can learn precious lessons.

Religion according to me is the biggest influence on the Indian psyche. And I believe that the premise of almost all religions originated from India is fairly neutral to positive towards women. Blind procrastination might be fashionable but not very logical and beneficial thing to do in long run. So careful study and assessment of Indian religion can help in liberating India women, contrary to popular beliefs.

Jijabai played instrumental role in developing political acumen of Shivaji. Kiran Bedi, Sushma Swaraj or Medha Patkar have been playing significant role in active and social politics for quiet some time now. Rani Padamini and Laxmi Bai (Jhansi ke Rani) have done something beyond bravery, backed by their deep political acumen and support from all corners of then totally male dominated society. No where in the world, Women have been politically active since time immoral, except in India. Even now the most powerful and important positions in Indian Politics are up for grabs for the intelligent,  educated, liberal and politically astute Women of India. Ironical the fierce competition is from not so educated segment though, which further reaffirms that the Indian masses are welcoming towards women ready to lead.

GDP of India is under estimated, because the contribution of almost 25% of India population, i.e Housewives working at their own will, out of happiness, compassion and sometimes even forcefully is not properly accounted for. Indian housewives have mastered the art of running a big family with a small budget. Thanks to the housewives, the wastage of food, energy or any resources are minimal and the cost of living is one of the lowest in the world. This peer to peer training has equipped Indian housewives with some of remarkable lessons about balancing budget deficit, arts, handicraft, running business in spare time to managing large family spread all over India. Unfortunately we the Thankless males have never appreciated the enormous, free of cost services which Indian women have been rendering to our society and country for eons. But now with changing times, in the age of information explosion and easing communication, Indian housewives are leveraging lessons learnt while running home to successfully run several Small Medium businesses, home grown businesses escalating right upto the top of the pyramid.

The influx of information has temporarily confused the Indian women and men about the essence of being India. But now, more then men, the Indian women are adapting local traditions and values. They are busy weaving the net which will safeguard the uniqueness of being an Indian women without any hesitation to borrow and adapt ideas from other cultures.

Where lies the need for Change - A bit in the Attitude of the modern, educated women towards rituals, customs and towards the voice of uneducated, home ridden women. A bigger need of the hour is to change, educate the males of this country. Both the sections need to revisit our value systems, understand our identity and appreciate that rapes, oppression, eve-teasing and several such heinous crimes are not attributed to Indian-ness. We have to appreciate that Being India is confusing in itself, so being and remaining an Indian Women is a daunting task which only Indian women have been blessed to undertake. Though its important to improve the Law & Order conditions to ensure the safety and security of girls and women, but if we, the Indian males can change our mindset a little bit, miracles can happen overnight.

The democratic chaos, the religious equality, the traditions and deep rooted family support are some of the critical and unique aspects which will put the Indian women in the driver's seat, in the Years ahead. We will see many more successful Women working cohesively with the entire society to shape the future, which world will look upon to.

3rd Front in 2014 !

Or before ?

Celebrations are going on. The elections in 5 states represent the biggest election of this year. But neither BJP nor Congress is able to enjoy these celebrations. While we the people are not embracing the reincarnated extended Gandhi family,  the perennial opposition is not able to put up a strong case either. Leadership crisis is evident across all the parties and everybody seems to be cautious, trying to remain politically correct, not to offend anybody. The Political stalwarts are eagerly waiting for the results and will be willing to form alliance with old time foes. Politics has always been a leveler especially in India, where everything and anything is compromised so as to gain power. Nobody leaves any opportunity to malign everybody and anybody and yet post polls, nobody minds anything and everything that has been said during the run to the polls.

With regional parties gaining more and more power, relevance and seats, the national parties i.e the BJP and the Congress despite all their efforts in state polls in past decade are still forced/required to support a local party in most of the states, especially in the recently conducted state polls which are also termed as Semifinal for 2014!

Unless the two national parties do some real good work in the field, over and above spending millions of $ during the election campaign, I guess we are heading for a hung parliament or perhaps a Third front government   led by TMC, NCP or SP in near future! Though there has always been significant difference in the dynamics of Politics during State and Central elections but for sure both BJP & Congress secretly dream and hoped for miracle to happen till yesterday.

But Today has once again taught us the simple lesson that Yesterday, the history, might not repeat itself tomorrow and nobody can foretell what might happen day after.

Simple, Pragmatic Suggestions to Election Commission

Dear Sir,

We sincerely Thank you for providing us, reasonably good elections so far. While a lot has been achieved but still lot more is required towards Electoral Reforms. We realize that Free and Fair elections are foundation for any Democracy. We also realize that its we the voters who should come forward and play our part, but unfortunately we are sometimes occupied with our jobs, household chores, meetings or even watching the entertaining head over heels Bollywood movies. While all of our consumeristic heeds are important to push us ahead of China, we realize that by not sparing time to vote, we are insanely leaving our houses open, hoping that the Ram Rajya will prevail. While we have many other explanations about why we hope for Euphoria to prevail and prepare ourselves to be embraced by the daemons from heaven, we have few simple suggestions which can make our and your life bit more easy and comfortable. We are not challenging your or capabilities, but we believe that these suggestions can be easily incorporated -

1. Please try to plan to elections over weekends and/ or over lapping with some public holidays. I know that certain officials might not be inclined to work during such odd times, but I think that this step can significantly increase the voter turnout across all categories such as working professionals, students or housewives. We, the people wont mind spending half of the off day to vote, but the probability of voting decreases significantly, if its organized on one of the hectic weekend.

2. Please try to increase the number of voting booths, so that its easy for you to monitor voting in each booth and it takes less time, thus will not hamper many of us from voting, who cant afford to spend hours in que under sun, due to various reasons.

3. Please make some special arrangements for physically handicap, elderly people, pregnant women at the polling booths.

4. As you might be aware that in 20 major cities of our country more than 100 million people, reside, i.e more than 10% of the total population. A significant percentage (guesstimate> 50%) of people are not bonafide of that particular city, hence cant vote. Similarly in several Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and towns (by population). Overall all these migrants (in metros, major cities and towns, including the NRIs) should total to more than 100 million India citizens, who cant vote. So please make simple and clear policies so as to include this group into election process.

5.  Instead of investing your time and resources in taming the Elephant, please try to tame the Liquor barons, the free food, drugs, cash distributors. You may disqualify candidates who found doing these un-democratic misdeeds and all his relatives from contesting in election for next 15 years. Please go on and ban that political party from contesting in the election of that specific constituency.

6. In addition to publishing all information on website, please create information kiosks in each village, town and city from where the citizens can gather information about the affidavits filed by each candidate, current and previous election manifesto of each political parties etc.

 7. Please the Government of India to allocate more funds to you, so that you can round the year propagate and educate the citizens about their rights and responsibilities.

8. Mobile Booths - Big trucks or vans can be converted into a Polling Booth which can travel to remote areas, Colleges, Hospitals, IT Parks etc where lot of potential voters reside but who are not able to visit Polling Booths due to insane traffic, heavy work schedule etc.

Implementing above suggestions wont cost too much of Exchequer's money, but will definitely improve the participation of we the people thus bolstering democracy in many subtle but powerful ways.

Of course the above list is not exhaustive, please add your suggestions in the comments and we can subsequently send an email/letter to Election Commission !

From Poverty to Samruddhi - A Microfinance Solution

Poverty remains one of the biggest challenge India is facing today. Unfortunately the number of poor living in abject conditions by any normal standard, is much more then the population of most of the continents. We all know about it, we all discuss about it and sometimes we even give some donations, but very few of us actually go on to soil our hands in mud and clay, work towards solving this problem.

One organization working silently to eradicate poverty is Samrudhi Microfinance Society. Microfinance is an effective tool to combat poverty. It helps people to help themselves. By providing small loans to low income women entrepreneurs Samrudhi aims to help several communities to get rid of the vicious circle..

Samrudhi Microfinance Society, recently launched an updated website - We Care India. The new website allows individuals like me and you to extend micro-loans through their websites. These loans are repaid back to the lender in around 12 months. I find this concept far better then blind donations. The lender can track the progress of the borrower online. Samrudhi helps the borrowers in several ways, so as to ensure that they pays back the loan in time.

Samrudhi is currently participating in an online contest organized by Global Giving. If Samrudhi can raise $4000 through Global Giving contest page here they will be listed on Global Giving website permanently. This will provide much needed online exposure to Samrudhi. If Samrudhi is successful they will also get matching grants from several corporate in UK and USA. I hope readers of this post will appreciate the work of Samrudhi and will help them to win the contest.

It's very difficult for most of us to realize how much interest people in rural India or urban slums pay to get cash so as to buy household items or to run their small business for few days. Banks or other financial institutions are not interested to even open account for such truly needy and hardworking people, because of the risk involved. So these men and women are left with no other option but take small loans (e.g. Rs.100/day- Rs.5000/month etc) from these lenders, also known as loan sharks.  I remember having a conversation with vegetable seller in my town. She told me she lends Rs.100 in the morning and returns back Rs.120-Rs.130 in the evening or next day. Loan sharks are omnipresent in India.

Lack of access to funds has multifaceted affects on the lenders, borrowers and the economy. Such transactions generate black money in the process, which loan sharks keep in the form of cash or gold. My guesstimate is that around $ 8-10 Billion black money is generated by this exercise. Secondly such high interest loans comes with high pressure including life threats. Several people are unable to repay such high interest loans from loans sharks. Some of them breakdown and abandon their families, some unfortunately ends up committing suicides.

Other organizations, I am aware of working to combat poverty in a sustainable manner having Internet based loan facilitation model are Rang De and Milaap.

Leander Paes - An Unsung Sports Icon !

A nation starved of Icons with whom the youth of country can relate to, fortunately I am happy about the unsung 'ness' which real, worthy Icons face. Leander Paes is one of them.

He become the first Indian to win under 18 Wimbledon tennis tournament. Later on he become first Indians to win a medal in individual sports category in Olympics, by winning much coveted Bronze medal in Single's category 1996 Atlanta Olympics. I remember watching him play against Andre Agassi with so much passion and zeal in that awesome semi-final. Aggassi was in top form then and though he won the match, the world saw what a true fighter Leander was and will remain.  Fortunately Abhinav Bindra won a Olympic Gold for us later on. These 2 medals still remains our cherished and only Olympic medals in any individual sports.

Leander Paes chose to focus on his game, his fitness and stayed away from media, especially the Television advertising. His focus and commitment paid of well as he went on to become one of the most successful Doubles Tennis player of the world. Leander had the opportunity to rake in multi-million dollars by endorsing several brands, attending award functions or by working in movies etc. However he seems to be contend with the prize money and chose to rather use his time to practice, play and win more games, tournaments, one after the other without making any headlines ever except for his achievements in sports.

What I have learned from Leander is that one can remain focused on his work and yet can earn good money, bring name and fame for the nation and for himself. I learned that its not necessary that people around you and the masses will appreciate you for your good work but still you can do what you like and excel at it.

It amuses me that despite of having such a vast pool of raw talent, we as a nation is not able to do much at truly international level ( and I dont think Common Wealth Games are truly international, with all due respect). Once again, who's to be blamed at. System? Government has done absolutely nothing to develop decent sporting infrastructure at the grass-root level. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to Indian cricket if  exceptional players like Kapil Dev, Mohindar Amarnath and Gavaskar never happened to India. The first and second generation of Indian cricketers developed on their own, drawing inspiration from one another, without any support from government or authorities. If 1983 never happened perhaps 2011 might not have happened either.

The nation became obsessed with Cricket (a sport which is played by practically 8 countries of the world) because we had no other option. Period.

Whatever Leander Paes achieved is exceptional. He achieved it on its own. Our media never cared to write too much about him and that actually worked to his advantage. Because he achieved everything on his own, his success cant be easily replicated and scaled to develop more committed, hard working players like him.

In past 5 years, Cricket grew big because Corporate World started riding on the back of Crickets to promote their brands. Leander Paes is exceptional and not everybody can be like him. So several small town boys, who became popular overnight started riding the euphoria on the back and shoulders of some exceptional 3rd generation players such as Sachin, Kumble, Dravid. The sheer number of talented cricketers available increased, because the money involved, the glamour, name and fame increased all of a sudden, especially after the IPL booom !

Leander Paes personified consistency, he never stopped just because he won an Olympic medal or led India to World Group in Davis Cup.

Sports is not just about entertainment and business as it seems to be reduced to currently in India. Sports is celebration of human spirit and raw capabilities. Technology has made our lives comfortable and will continue to do so. Sports field is where we realize that like other animals, we too are made of flesh and veins. Our blood also boils and heart can afford to skip few beats. When a sportsmen is in a field, doing what he's supposed to be doing, nothing matters except him. No matter how much money is riding on his back nothing but only his performance can raise him above the rest, amidst the best.

We as a nation definitely can do much much better then what we currently think of. Campaigns run by individuals, organizations such Olympic Gold Quest and NDTV Marks for Sports have raised awareness, provided some ray of hope to other sportsmen and women to pursue their passion, learn and excel in sport of their choice.

Still lot more is required, not just from government but from each and every parent. Lets not stop our kids from becoming Saina Nehwal or Leander Paes of tomorrow !

India's Castles in the Air !!

We the people of India and the sate of India has managed to sail through the 2007-09 recession. However I am slightly skeptical that it happened because of fool proof planning of the Central government or just by chance. Whatever may be the case, the Central government has not left any opportunity to pat its own back in public time and again. I hope they will maintain their stance and will take all the credit for economic, financial crisis which I tend to believe is imminent now, unfortunately though.

Interest rates have been going up, inflation, real estate prices have been going up as well. In past 5-7 years governments have announced several plans to boost infrastructure but except few malls and housing complexes here and there, randomly out of nowhere, not much has been achieved. Corruption has crippled the pace of growth and has eaten away a huge chunk of funds spent on infrastructure projects.

We, the hardworking  people of India have been toiling hard, day and night, working despite all odds, lack of resources and sometimes despite lack of opportunities.

The western economies, be it US, Canada, UK or Italy do not appear to be recovering from the recession anytime soon. To save the face and then government, almost all the political parties and governments have been recklessly approving bailout packages on after the other. Only couple of people have been symbolically caught to give the message to the masses, that its not Wall Street but White House who's In-charge of the situation. But ironically neither of them want to take the blame for what happened.

The Indian IT industry which heavily relied in Outsourcing work has seen decline in top-line and bottom-line, slowly and steadily. Weak currency, which traditionally have been good news for the IT and outsourcing industry is becoming a bad news, slowly and steadily. Importers are already feeling the pinch and if go by analysts, the currency will remain under pressure for next couple of quarters, which means the pinch will hurt bad this time around.

The Indian stock markets have not done well in 2011 and bond yields are on rise. The corruption is on rise as well and almost all the incumbent governments at state and center are not able to give away their chair, their stone aged politics under the current circumstances.

New year is around the corner and its better we start preparing for unforeseeable circumstances. Couple of more larger then life scams or cracking real estate market will be sufficient enough to bring down the Castles in the Air made out of pack of cards !

So lets cheer up for a while. Enjoy the Christmas Sunday, keep our brick and mortar ready and be prepared to go out in the sun and the rain to mend our house which we have built with so much of love, passion and hard-work over the years.

The Lokpal Kolaveri !

Unfortunately I am not much surprised to see the Government of India behaving yet again like a class 5 student. They dont want to work, play, have fun at the expense of their father and mother, even if the mistake is their's they wont accept, they will spend the whole weekend partying around and only at 11pm on Sunday night they will start doing the homework and will complaint to their mom not to push them for completing the huge homework in 1-2 hours now.

Why does it always happens the same way. What was government doing from August, full 4 months. Why can these discussions, analysis happen well in time. 

I hope, looking at how things went on during 2011, Mr.Nilekani and Ms. A.Roy would like to rethink and revisit their articles, stance and opinion. Anyways, people have long forgotten their irrelevant statement and articles already, which neither contributed positively nor critically or negatively towards the Lokpal debate.

The government used its entire machinery in its totality in past one year so as to make sure that no strong anti-corruption bill is prepared, presented and passed in time. Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have given speeches in recent past about their commitment to pass a strong Lokpal Bill, but the same people appointed Sharad Pawar about 11 months ago as the head of the committee responsible to prepare a strong anti-corruption bill. Income department was literally used a puppet doll to chase the IAC team. So instead of focusing on collecting Billions Rs. of outstanding Income Tax. In April they assured of August. In August they created a last moment crisis, suggested to make Lokpal a constitutional body and recently out of the blue they suggested to offer reservation to minorities in the Lokpal committee.

Interestingly if one reads and analyze the comments of MPs and Politicians outside the top 10 media savy, post gradute or PhD MPs and Politicians one can start believing what Om Puri once accidentally said out of emotional outburst few months ago.

On a positive note, I find all these political cards being played by Congress a positive development. NCPRI has a strong command over legislature but unfortunately they fail to understand the politics. Despite all their individual and collective brilliance they might not have been able to reach a stage where national debates are happening in great detail at various places across India for more than 6 months.

Now the reason behind my positive outlook despite of all this is the Bittu Singh Syndrome. Over the years I have observed all government officers, politicians using one of these Top 10 excuses over the years. Unfortunately media has not been able to dissect through these over done, stereotypical excuses and present real, in-depth and much needed analysis. Interestingly in the current case, due to tremendous and constant pressure created by team IAC over past One year, government has used and exhausted almost all of these excuses. So despite all this Kolaveri of government, I am sure what bill they might pass things are bound to change significantly in 2012!

So I ask the government why this Lokpal Kolaveri di? 

Who the hell laid that Golden Egg ?

Nobody has an iota of doubt that a lot needs to be done to establish India as a sporting nation at an international level.

The Golden Egg is very rare, so it doesn't Exist !

But, with all due respect, I dont agree with PT Usha's latest comments about advent of Formula 1 in India. She pioneered the cause of Women athletics in India, motivated and trained several young women to dream big despite not much support from government or their own family members. I would completely agree with her if she says that Athelitcs is not gaining the popularity it deserved because the country lacks infrastructure, coaches and constant funding etc. But what's the point in bashing one form of sport which happens to be one of the most popular sport of the world, to promote another.

The Golden Egg fell from the table, so lets kill the Goose !

What has all the T20 cricket bashers gained, the T20 cricket evolved, improved, became more popular, offered opportunity to make money, gain respect to several young cricketers who could never make it to national team, offered employment to 100s of 1000s of people. On contrary I feel, T20 forced teams and coaches to think different, try something new and thus lot of experiments were done, some went successful some not, but ultimately the game evolved. Some cricketers got injured while playing T20, so lets ban T20

The Golden Egg was actually Silver !

Lot of mediocre player get chance to play, perform, learn and earn when a sports become popular. Some remain mediocre and some rise. That's what happens in every walk of life. I dont blame the body shopping IT companies for not pioneering the search engine algorithms. Saina Nehwal is not PT Usha and I don't blame Deepika Padukone for choosing modeling over sport or for that matter Sania Mirza for choosing sport over modelling. The not so famous medium pacer Salil Ankola became a not so famous TV artist, so should BCCI ban TV channels in India now?

  I will Kill your Goose who lays Golden Egg, because I don't have one !

What is the definition of a Sports? Is sports only about physical capabilities? I think Formual 1 like any other sports requires physical fitness, mental stamina, rigorous training, planning, commitment, passion to succeed amidst intense competition. Behind every successful Formula 1 sportsmen is a huge team of 15-30 people which includes highly qualified engineers and psychologists. Not all the successful Formula One world champions were born in rich families. They became rich as a consequence of the success and name they achieved by excelling in their sport. In the countries where Athletics is big sport, the Formula One driver or the NBA player makes more money in general. So ? 

500 IITs, 50 IIMs and 550 AIIMS

That's all we need to fix the education system of India. Quiet simple isn't it ! Same old, 4-5 fixed formula is not all is you need to appease, woo voters, snatch and retain power in India, today. That's what our current and even previous Minister of Human Resource Development and the GOI believe in general.

Blame it to lack of creativity or to inability to prepare a comprehensive master plan to revamp the business of higher education in India. Is it so hard to manufacture different names for different Universities? I think the ministries and bureaucrats needs to take some lessons in creativity from the Saas Bahu brigade, who keeps on creating new characters, sub plots under super plots for decades or the celebrated Roshans who keeps on inventing news names for their movies despite having the severe 'K' restriction.

IIT Kanpur is all set to establish a center in Noida and in parallel IIT Roorke is planning to open a research center in Noida, while my Alma-mater IIT Bombay is contemplating to set up campus in New York! Now that's some out of the box thinking ! With elections round the corner and Congress seems to be loosing battle on most of the fronts, I wont be surprised if in the name of progress Congress announce opening of another 5000 IITs, 5050 AIIMS and 50 IIMs in next 5 years. Very soon, we can run into some interesting conversations-

Ram- Hi, I am from IIT Baroda, Mysore, Behind Cloth Market.

Shyam- Hey, even I am from IIT Baroda, Mysore, but on left side of Cloth Market !

Radheshyam - Good to meet you guys. I am also from IIT Baroda, Mysore, above Cloth Market !!

All the newly set and old IITs are struggling to fill in 1000 odd vacant faculty positions. The swanky buildings of private Daring to think beyond Lovely universities and institutes have launched a full throttle advertising campaigns to woo the students. But who cares what's inside the box ! The packing should be attractive.

I am not at all questioning the need to open more institutes of advance learning and research in each and every district of India. I am not trying to question the great service IIT, IIM, AIIMS and several such universities have rendered over the years. My point is why cant we create competing brands? Why are we hell bent on converting all Oranges to Apples? Why cant we create an ecosystem in which Baroda Institute of Technology competes with IIT Baroda? Each university can offer something new, something different be it options of courses or pedagogy. Why cant government prepare a comprehensive master plan, before conducting a inauguration ceremony photo session for ever news hungry news papers?  Do we only need more Engineers, Doctors and Managers? What about adding new universities in the field of Literature, Fine Arts, History and Political Sciences?

Despite being admired by several Business and Political honchos of the west, none of the best of cream universities of India, appear in the list of top 50 universities of the world in any category and barely couple of them could make it to top 100! We can either choose to bask in the glory of these words of appreciation we have been receiving OR we can attempt to rethink, re-look at what we have achieved so far, whats wrong with the current situation and what all is yet to be achieved ! India is ranked way down when it comes to Per Capita spending on Primary Education and Higher Education. Which implies, we haven't done anything extra-ordinary by investing in reasonable infrastructure at IITs and IIMs, which is definitely best at domestic levels, but when compared at International level, reminds me of the famous Robert Frost's poem-

He Gives his harness bells a shake,

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep,

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The Woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

How much our MP's' earn, REVEALED !!

Grammar Disclaimer: The As's' above was meant for the members and not the parliament!

PS: This post is not intended to ridicule the parliamentarian. I fully agree with GB Shaw on this one - Democracy is a device that ensures that we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

I sincerely hope after reading this analysis many more of us will be genuinely encouraged to join the politics as a full time career.

All the below data is available on Sarkari website . Though some numbers can be discussed, while some might think I over estimated, others might feel I underestimated, so I tried to remain reasonably conservative as much possible. In the analysis below, we are not even considering the indirect expenditures and benefits which MPs get such as security for self and family, subsidized grocery and almost everything else required to live a good healthy life from government canteens inside the parliament and other government canteens. We are also not analyzing the in kind benefits which our MPs tend to get during the festive seasons in the name of personal or party accounts, which causes their assets to grow 5-10 times within few years of coming into power. Such articles published in 2008, 2009 and 2011 can be read at leisure, to analyze the exponential rise in the total assets of those ruling us.

So from the table above as we can see, the conservative CTC (Cost to the Country) of an MP is close to Rs.35 Lakhs ($70k), excluding the cost of maintaining security guards, the cost of life long pension, insurance, sarkari vehicle etc. On an average 190 sessions of Parliament takes place in a year, so I have assumed that MPs in order to claim their Daily Allowance will attend all the sessions. Similarly the constituency allowance and the office allowance (which is meant to buy office stationery etc) will also be going invariably into the pocket. Pen, Mobile phones, grocery items, admissions to the local good schools and colleges, free gifts on all the festivals celebrated by any religion, in addition to birthday, marriage anniversary gifts etc are some vanila perks which are not even considered illegal by most of the laws in India, which MPs can enjoy.

So while government wants BMC to go on a strike to implement 6th Pay Commission on one hand, on the other hand they want to lower the line so as to reduce the number of people below poverty line (and thus reduce the funds/schemes for them) on another, on third hand (if it exists) they want 42 years to pass a Lokpal bill, but when it comes to their own salaries, the bill was created and passed by themselves quiet easily without much discussions.

They already earn highest of the monies, still I would suggest let's give them another 100% hike every 5 years based on performance, so that they make more money than any other member of parliamenterain in the world can ever imagine, so that the best of the breeds and the best of the talents would want to enter the politics not just for public service but for their own personal, short term, immediate gains and focus time and energies on things which they are supposed to be doing, so that we can proudly agree to GB Shaw.

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Image source - Google

An Unheard Land Scam in Textile Ministry !!

A report from Comptroller and Auditor General of India is available free of cost without filing any Right to Information. Surprisingly this issue was never discussed in Media or any steps were taken against the culprits. Instead some recommendations were made, to avoid these mistakes. The whole report can be downloaded from the Official Government of India Website.

I think as a country we are so used to and perhaps immune to scams in the range of few Billions of Dollars that scam worth Rs.800-900 crs are not even worth MEDIA time and attention.

A mere glance at first two pages reveal that a Loss of Rs.493 Crs due to Absence of Minimum Assured returns. To put it simply the Textile Ministry sold the land which belonged to government at a price much below the expected or open market price.

Most interestingly defect in Tender Documents resulted in loss of Rs.185 Crs. To put it simply the government bodies have not provided sufficient information in the Tender documents, which in turn would have reduced the chances of some bidders who were not having the insider information about the land and hence the Tender was prepared in such a manner that only few parties could have won this tender in any case. On Page 147, one can read the further details that ' By Mistake' some areas which was never intended for sale was included (though not clearly stated) in the Tender. So, to put it simply those who had insider information knew that they will get a much larger chunk of land than what other bidders might assume.

All of this simply implies that somebody purchased the land at a steep discount and will use this land to convert into Mall or some Residential Complex in near future. Needless to say, during construction of such Mall or Housing society several more laws will be broken and ultimately the hard-working, tax-paying Mango Man like Me and You will spend our huge chunks of our Salary, which we earn after toiling day and night mostly in private sector and perhaps most of us will repay these loans for a significant portion of our life and a huge chunk of our life will be invested in planning to repay these loans.

And now government, some elite social activists, some intelligent foreign educated bureaucrats and politicians, reporters and international prize winning writers says that we should not take things in our hands. We should respect the Parliament, the democracy, we should not demean the Political class. On the contrary I think, unless each and every such reports, such scams are bought into limelight, discussed and the pressure is kept on them to take action and resolve the matters, under close microscopic scrutiny, THEY WONT BUDGE, SHOULD WE ?

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The Link to CAG Report - http://www.cag.gov.in/html/reports/commercial/2009_27PA/chap_9.pdf

Youth. At any cost !

A burning desire to succeed,

Sometimes at any cost!

Against Limited supply,

Of resources and inspiration, and,

Love of family and few friends.

Learnt to learn, grow,

Shine and outshine,

Achieved seemingly impossible,

Earned and remained happy,

Sometimes at any cost!

We are open, liberal,

Perhaps hypercritical.

We do pay our taxes,

Don't litter on much on streets,

Drive our new bikes, and

friend's car occasionally.

In a hurry to reach our destination,

Sometimes at any cost !

Whenever we faltered,

We stood up, sought advice,

Fought, made our own way.

Call centres, IT, Culinary Arts or Fashion,

Yes, no great innovation,

But some of us managed to thrive,

Sometimes at any cost !

We are thankful, indebted for the privilege,

Of being born in free India.

Yes, we know many issues,

Still unresolved.

Yes, be assured will be solved,

Perhaps slowly, but,

At any cost!

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Nitin

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Frankly, I started writing a prose and soon decided to convert it in a poem instead. Writing a poem after a long time, after having written some really long articles in the recent past :)

A Happy Independence Day to all, hope this year will be an year of action, beyond watching old patriotic movies and listening to old songs !

Phir Bhi Ganga Behati Hai !

Someone, somewhere once rightly said - Art is the mirror of the society. The medium of art which strongly influenced the Indian society and vice versa, is, no brainers indeed - Cinema !
A melodious songs from a timeless classic of Rajkapur released in 1960 very beautifully written by master Poet Shailendra, goes like this -
होटों पे सच्चाई रहती है, जहाँ दिल मैं सफाई रहती है. हम उस देश के वासी है, जिस देश मैं गंगा बहती है!
महमा जो हमारा होता है, वोह जान से प्यारा होता है ! ज्यादा का नहीं लालच हमको, थोड़े मैं गुजरा होता! बच्चों के लिए जो धरती माँ, सदियों से सभी कुछ सहती है! हम उस देश के वासी हैं, जिस देश मैं गंगा बहती है!
कुछ लोग जो ज्यादा जानते हैं, इंसान को कम पहचानते हैं, यह पूरब है, पूरब वाले हर जान के कीमत जानते हैं! मिल जुल के रहो और प्यार करो, एक चीज यही तो रहती है! हम उस देश के वासी हैं जिस देश मैं गंगा बहती है! The picturization of this song, relevance to the story and music indeed are simply superb. However what is more important is the timelessness and travesty of this song. I think every generation in past 2500 years of history can relate to this song and would have wished to live in a society narrated in the song. This song portrays An immortal wish, dream, value system, which never materialized and perhaps ever will ! To good to be true, the song touches the Indian hearts and souls almost every time it is played (rarely though these days) on the television or perhaps YouTube ! That's plurality of being Indian, a confusion, dilemma, puzzle, enigma. In the context of movie, this song plays a role of fire in ice. Amidst cold blooded hooligans and innocent villagers a modest man reminds everybody of what it means to be being true Indian-Modest, Truthful, Generous, Loving, Happy despite all hardships, Caring towards friends and guest, Sacrificing, Pious . This is what elders in every generation has taught to the younger generations, this is what is written in the books, this is what is being taught by religious leaders, saints, gods and demigods! The truthfulness, the simplicity depicted in this movie and all other movies released in 1950s and 60s appears to be - Too Good to be true, now !! The society, the people shown in Black and White movies of those times, were black and white in their character, in their beliefs and value system. Where are those people ? Is it safe to say that people now are more complicated than people 50 years ago ? Or is it the other way, i.e people are far less complicated now and don't try to hide behind a song, or don’t try to live in a make believe world and are honest and courageous enough to accept the truth! 40 years down the line, Javed Akhtar penned a song, which projected a grey, yet happy state of Indian society -
हम लोगों को समझ सको तो समझो दिलबर जानी जितना भी तुम समझोगे उतनी होगी हैरानी अपनी छतरी तुमको देदें कभी जो बरसे पानी कभी नए पच्केट में बेचें तुमको चीज़ पुरानी
थोड़े अनारी हैं थोड़े खिलाडी रुक रुक्के चलती है अपनी गाडी हमें प्यार चाहिए और कुछ पैसे भी हम ऐसे भी हैं हम हैं वैसे भी
थोड़ी हममें खुशियाँ भी हैं थोड़ी है नादानी थोड़ी हम में सच्चाई है थोड़ी बेईमानी आँखों में कुछ आंसू हैं कुछ सपने हैं आंसू और सपने दोनों ही अपने हैं दिल दुख है लेकिन टूटा तो नहीं है उम्मीद का दामन चूका तो नहीं है
हम लोगों को समझ सको तो समझो दिलबर जानी थोड़ी मजबूरी है लेकिन थोड़ी है मनमानी थोड़ी तू तू मैं मैं है और थोड़ी खीचा तानी हम में काफी बातें हैं जो लगती हैं दीवानी फिर भी दिल है हिन्दुसतनी !!
Another timeless classic, another song to which almost all the generation can relate to, not in a philosophical or superficial manner but as a song which represents them more accurately, which portrays their mixed feelings, emotions about being what we are as we are now !

Both the songs are beautiful in their own way, while former summarizes lessons from thousands of years the later symbolizes past 20 years of liberalization.

What about the benchmarks ... (ps: nothing to do with the creativity and genius of both the writers!) Of Society ? While the former song refers to a wishful thinking, but still it reminds us of what is right. Perhaps an escape from reality but yet reminds us of how we should be ! I think whatever acts of kindness, nobility we see in our society can be attributed to the good songs we used to listen to, poems and books we used to read. We still are good as a society but with some insanely bad habits, especially the most fundamental ones! I always believed that realization is the first step, but mere acceptance and a bit of arrogance that "we are like this", “ Everything is possible and everything is acceptable”, cant lead us to anywhere! To maverick foreigners visiting India, this new found freedom, madness on street might appeal a lot, to NRIs returning/visting India, all of this might appear despicable and to most of us all of this becomes a routine with indifferent attitude. 
Such an attitude puts a break on the growth of society. What starts with acceptance of minor deviations in behaviour, small wrongdoings becomes a habit which society keeps on accepting and slowly and unknowingly, the minor deviations becomes humoungous caused by complex interactions, leading to permanent changes (temporal but over long duration such as couple of decades) in the benchmark of what is right and what is not! For example what might have started as an occasional 'gifts', 'inaam', sweets, slowly become a monster what we now call as bribing, which grow out of proportion in the form of multi billion scams! Similarly what might have started in an attempt to taste the legacy of East India Company and the British Empire, i.e drinking Tea in government offices, slowly became a habit of absconding from offices to drink tea and ultimately leading to whole day being turned into a tea break!

While its good to realize our shades of grey, black and white, attempts must be made to turn the greys and blacks into lesser greys and lighter blacks white, with universal (and not contextual) definitions of rights and wrongs, an attempt to be white and fair beyond the fairness cream for women and now for men !

As Javed saheb has rightly put - दिल दुख है लेकिन टूटा तो नहीं है, उम्मीद का दामन चूका तो नहीं है !